How MLB Speedway Classic at Bristol Motor Speedway happened from first visit to first pitch

Jeremiah Yolkut made up his mind before he entered Bristol Motor Speedway.

The MLB senior vice president of global events came to the famed racetrack in 2022 to investigate the possibility of playing a major league baseball game in the venue.

It only took driving up to the structure to have him sold. He was hooked by the vastness and grandness of the facility, the spectacle it would be to play baseball in such a place. He and his MLB colleagues walked inside, explored the behemoth interior and it validated Yolkut’s gut reaction: there must be a baseball game played at Bristol. 

He called his bosses to relay the good news.

“I will send the notes but this place looks viable,” Yolkut reported. “It is going to take a couple years but I think we can get this done.”

Three years later, it is done and the game is here. The Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds play at Bristol Motor Speedway on Aug. 2 (7:15 p.m. ET, FOX) in the MLB Speedway Classic.

How MLB, Bristol Motor Speedway partnered for game

Motorsports are the heart of Bristol Motor Speedway, but so are big ideas and outside-the-track thinking. 

Jerry Caldwell wants it that way and he got a chance to prove it in his first year as the president of Bristol Motor Speedway in 2022 when the idea of a baseball game was first floated.

“That was not one that was on my bingo card at the time that we were looking at that closely,” Caldwell said.

Yolkut and the MLB global team talk monthly about places where games could be played.

Bristol Motor Speedway was discussed as a possibility as MLB commissioner Rob Manfred pushed for more games in unique settings, which led to the visit in 2022 for a viability study. Yolkut and MLB representatives visited Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, before flying to Bristol. 

The trips to vastly different venues both proved successful. 

Rickwood Field had the history as the former home of the Negro Leagues’ Birmingham Black Barons, which led to a game between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals in June 2024.

Bristol had the size to make for an event of unseen nature for an MLB game. “The Last Great Colosseum” has a capacity of more than 146,000 for NASCAR events. More than 85,000 tickets have been sold to see the Braves and Reds, an MLB record.

A baseball diamond could fit in the infield, which is not the case for all racetracks. All necessary components from hotels to entry points worked. BaAM productions, BrightView and Populous, the same groups that have put on MLB games at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Rickwood Field and the Field of Dreams in Iowa, visited soon after.

The Bristol Motor Speedway team was on board from the first visit. A BMS representative approached Yolkut’s MLB contingent during the viability study to say “what if?”

"What if?" quickly turned into a "how?"

“We saw not only could we build a field here but we had partners who were willing to work with us,” Yolkut said.

What Bristol Motor Speedway tore out to make way for baseball field

Steve Swift didn’t have any skepticism. He just had a question: How can we make this happen?

“The wheels start turning,” said Swift, the senior vice president of operations and development at Speedway Motorsports. “Getting those wheels turning is part of the fun. We enjoy the challenge.”

Bristol Motor Speedway presented exactly what MLB was looking for to hold a game. But it wasn’t without challenges. 

There was room for a field and all necessary components, but it had to be positioned well with the sun and to account for Colossus — the 700-ton centerhung videoboard. The fan experience was the focus, which made the field going into Turn 1 and Turn 2 the ideal position. 

“We were able to configure the field to where the entire colossus will be in the field of play but in foul territory so the field itself will be not obstructed,” said Murray Cook, the president of BrightView Sports’ Turf Division.

The field positioning was tweaked until the necessary distance was outlined. 

Then Swift had another question: What needed to be done to the facility to make it happen? The baseball diamond demands dwarf the space needed for the Battle at Bristol between Tennessee and Virginia Tech in the 2016 college football season.

The answer was demolition.

BMS removed half of the Goodyear Building to make room for the outfield. It cut out sections of the pit wall on the backstretch of the track to make room for left field. Sunoco gas tanks, which are not utilized anymore during NASCAR race weekends, were removed before the area was handed over to MLB to build a field starting in mid-June.

All the baseball elements will be removed prior to the Bass Pro Shops Night Race on Sept. 13. The pit walls will be rebuilt and have enough time to cure and set to be safe for the NASCAR race. 

“I have got great comfort whenever he says we can do it, I know we can execute,” Caldwell said of Swift.

How a field was built at Bristol Motor Speedway from gravel to walls

Cook had 18 days to create a baseball diamond at the Sydney Cricket Grounds in 2014.

The go-to field consultant for major league baseball has mastered getting pro-level fields created in the past decade from Australia to London to the cornfield in Iowa. 

“We have created quite the ballpark in a box concept where we can grab things from it from paddings to clays to soils to all the components to make the field MLB-ready,” said Cook, who has worked in 60 countries around the world building baseball fields. 

The first step at BMS was to level the sloped surface with 17,500 tons of gravel. It took 340 tons of clay from DuraEdge Clay in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, to build the infield, mounds and bullpens. The same clay is used in 25 MLB ballparks. 

The turf surface — AstroTurf’s Diamond Series — is the same product used at Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays. It covers 124,000 square feet, almost double the size of the football field built for the Battle at Bristol.

Approximately 215 lighting fixtures from Musco Lighting were installed on the roof at BMS.

“We have learned along the way, especially building a field in London,” Cook said. 

The field measures 400 feet to center field, 375 feet to the gaps and 330 feet down the lines. MLB used fencing from UK-based CLD Systems called FenceSafe, which it also used at games in London in recent seasons. 

Stands were built alongside the field, wrapping along the first-base line before expanding around the third-base line.

The Braves have a clubhouse space behind the right center field fence, while the Reds have one behind the third-base dugout. The spaces include all amenities expected by MLB teams, including locker rooms, weight rooms, cold tubs, hot tubs, offices for coaches and transfers and batting cages. 

“If you were inside that space, you would think you were in any ballpark in North America,” said Annemarie Roe, the president of BaAM Productions. 

Temporary infrastructure for power and water had to be built as part of the ballpark to supply the needs for the clubhouses.

The MLB Speedway Classic expanded into more than a game

Yolkut stood between Caldwell and the Blooper, the Braves’ mascot, in late June.

He held a shovel in his hands with a pile of gravel behind him as the project forged toward game day. 

“When you see first pitch and fans, this is why you do it,” Yolkut said.

The game was announced in August 2024, more than two years after Yolkut made the visit that got the ball rolling toward the record-setting game.

MLB chose the Braves and the Reds to play in the game because both are in the region, which makes it viable for fans to travel to Bristol. Both teams also possess fast superstars in Atlanta outfield Ronald Acuna Jr. and Cincinnati shortstop Elly De La Cruz to play into the racetrack component, Yolkut noted.

It added pregame concerts on the other half of the infield with country legend Tim McGraw and hip-hop’s Pitbull slated to perform. 

“The puzzle came together,” Yolkut said. “Now, we are using every inch of space at the venue.”

MLB planned a fan zone outside the facility on gameday with more concerts, including country star Jake Owen. The fan zone will include food trucks from local vendors, a Ferris wheel, the World Series trophy and batting cages. MLB Network will broadcast live from the fan zone and ESPN’s “SportsCenter” will be on hand for its "50 States in 50 Days" campaign. 

“I think that for those of us work in the major events business, that is what gets us up in the morning — the chance to be part of all of these,” Roe said.

Yolkut drove up to Bristol Motor Speedway in 2022 with the idea of a baseball game. He left with a vision of one. He will watch one three years later.

“To see the joy and memories made,” Yolkut said, “there will be people that talk about being at Bristol Motor Speedway for that record-setting game and that spectacle and all the things they got through the day.”

Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: MLB Speedway Classic: How Bristol Motor Speedway became a ballpark